Friday, November 8, 2013

When wolves and Montanan habitats collide

Wolves in Montana

A wolf wanders through a field. If a wolf or pack begins
causing problems for a populated area, investigations will begin to find
and potentially euthanize the problem wolves.

Posted: Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Adam Robertson/Mineral Independent

MINERAL COUNTY – With how common wolves are in Western Montana a
large amount of importance is placed on tracking their numbers and
movements.

According to Game Warden Justin Singleterry
hunters are one of the main controls of the wolf population. He
mentioned the importance of getting the wolf population to a sustainable
level, for the health of the area’s ecosystem, and said it was “very
much needed.” He encouraged deer and elk hunters to get wolf tags, just
in case they ran into some.

Singleterry related one story about a man and his
daughter both getting wolves. He said they were hunting deer or elk but
had wolf tags as well. As they were hunting, a pack of wolves crossed
the area near them.

The man shot and killed a wolf, causing the rest
of the pack to run. When his daughter went to check out the dead wolf,
her father told her to wait so they could see what happened. About 45
minutes later, the pack returned to investigate their fallen member.

The wolves did not notice either hunter. While
they looked over the dead wolf, the daughter was able to shoot and kill
another one.

Singleterry described this as a good technique
when hunting wolves with a friend. After shooting one, just wait a while
and the rest of the pack will likely return, giving the rest of the
group a chance at one.

Contrary to deer or elk, Singleterry said other hunters were a good source to find places with wolves.
“People are more apt to tell other hunters where they’ve seen wolves,” he said.

While it is rare, Singleterry admitted wolves
have attacked people or livestock before. He said in these situations an
investigation begins.

According to Singleterry, a Wildlife Human Attack
Response Team would examine the evidence to determine what happened.
The team has responded to attacks by bears, mountain lions, deer and
wolves, although rare.

Using the puncture wounds, teeth marks and DNA,
the team figures out what kind of animal was involved in the attack.
From there, he said they would attempt to capture the animal, usually
with traps placed near the attack site. Once they have a suspect, the
team measures the teeth or horns to determine if it is the same animal.
If they get a match, he said they usually euthanize it.

According to Singleterry the most humane method
of killing the animal is to shoot it, though he also said they have also
used drugs to put an animal to sleep. He explained the drugs were more
common as a way to immobilize an animal and were mainly used to kill
when shooting it was less ideal, like in a lab or a populated area.

Liz Bradley, a wolf management specialist from Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, also knows a lot on the subject of wolves.

One of Bradley’s jobs is monitoring the wolf populations. Her office does this by putting radio collars on wolves to track them.

According to Bradley, once a month she will go up
in a plane and find the signals from the various collars. The plane
will then circle lower so the number of wolves in a pack can be counted.
This gives her a fairly accurate number of how many wolves are in a
pack and how many packs there are in an area.

According to Bradley there is a fairly high
amount of turnover on the collars as wolves will sometimes escape the
collar or the collared wolf will be killed. She said it happens every
year and was just part of the job. When this happens, they will try and
get another wolf collared. “It varies from one year to the next,” she said

Bradley said this tracking and population
monitoring was part of why hunter reports were especially important.
Such reports help identify new packs forming and allow FWP to keep track
of their movements.

According to Bradley, the collars also help find
wolves when they attack livestock. The collars can track down packs near
the attack and determine whether any of those wolves, or the entire
pack, were responsible as part of the WHART investigation.

Bradley related a story of a pack of wolves near
Superior who killed a group of miniature horses in 2010. The wolves
needed to be tracked down and euthanized.

Two of the wolves had tracking collars, so the
investigators were able to locate the pack without much difficulty. The
collars indicated the pack had been at the site of the attack. This,
plus investigations confirming it as an attack by a pack of wolves, left
little doubt of their guilt. While the collars do not keep track of
their specific movements, the attack was in the middle of the pack’s
recorded territory.

“That’s the middle of their territory, it’s not that common [for other packs to infringe on a pack’s territory],” said Bradley.

Once it was confirmed the pack was responsible, a
helicopter flew out to track the wolves down and kill them. A gunner in
the helicopter was able to shoot the wolves from the air.

Bradley explained how relocating problem packs,
or individual wolves, was impractical. The federal government used to
have a relocation program, but the wolves would often die shortly after
the relocation or return to their original territory.

Over the whole state, the Forest Service removes a
few packs every year. However, Bradley said there have not been many in
Mineral County and this part of the state is not too big of a problem
area.

The film offers an abbreviated history of the relationship between wolves and people—told from the wolf’s perspective—from a time when they coexisted to an era in which people began to fear and exterminate the wolves.

The return of wolves to the northern Rocky Mountains has been called one of America’s greatest conservation stories. But wolves are facing new attacks by members of Congress who are gunning to remove Endangered Species Act protections before the species has recovered.

.

.

Inescapably, the realization was being borne in upon my preconditioned mind that the centuries-old and universally accepted human concept of wolf character was a palpable lie... From this hour onward, I would go open-minded into the lupine world and learn to see and know the wolves, not for what they were supposed to be, but for what they actually were.

-Farley Mowat, Never Cry Wolf

.

“If you look into the eyes of a wild wolf, there is something there more powerful than many humans can accept.” – Suzanne Stone